Very cold weather across the parts of the Plains, upper Midwest

Across the Corn Belt, cold, dry weather prevails, except for some snow showers downwind of the Great Lakes. The cold weather (Monday’s temperatures fell below 0° in the far upper Midwest) is increasing livestock stress.

On the Plains, cold weather is posing a threat to already drought-stressed wheat across central areas. For the third day in a row, temperatures fell to near 0° or below as far south as northeastern Colorado and northwestern Kansas, where snow cover is patchy or non-existent. Elsewhere, snow is helping to protect the northern Plains’ wheat, while temperatures have remained mostly above 10° on the southern Plains.

In the South, warmth lingers in the Atlantic Coast States, but sharply colder air is overspreading the remainder of the region. A band of rain stretches from southeastern Texas to the Virginia, but precipitation is changing to snow, sleet, and freezing rain in parts of eastern Texas.

In the West, cold, dry weather prevails, except for some snow showers across the interior Northwest. Freeze Warnings were in effect again Monday morning, as they were during the weekend, from California’s Central Valley into the Southwest. Citrus and winter vegetable producers throughout the West continue to monitor and guard against freeze injury from temperatures that have fallen into the 25 to 30° range, with locally lower readings.

A series of disturbances will interact with a slow-moving cold front draped across the Southeast. As a result, additional, early- to mid-week precipitation could reach 1 to 4 inches from the central Gulf Coast into the southern Mid-Atlantic region. The northwestern edge of the precipitation shield will be in the form of snow, sleet,or freezing rain, primarily affecting areas from eastern Texas into the northern Mid-Atlantic States.

Much of the remainder of the country will experience dry weather through week’s end, except for some snow across the nation’s northern tier.

Temperatures across the western and central U.S. will rebound, with above-normal readings expected by mid-week in northern California and the northern and central Plains.

Looking ahead, the 6- to 10-day outlook calls for above-normal temperatures from the Pacific Coast to the High Plains, while colder-than-normal conditions will prevail across the eastern half of the U.S. Meanwhile, below-normal precipitation across the majority of the nation will contrast with wetter-than-normal weather from the northern Plains to New England.